What Happened To Annabelle
The investigator stared deeply into my eyes as if daring me to tell a lie.
He wants the truth, and I can’t give it.
I took a deep breath, trying to recollect all the long sermons I’ve heard long before now on the dangers of a single lie. Oh! That was too religious I thought as my mind quickly flashed at mother’s recurring words every time I tried to substitute a white lie for an inconvenient truth.
Don’t bother lying Shenna, one tiny attempt becomes like oil drops that smear your entire dress, face, and name. It’s not worth it.
But that was the thing with lies, there was always a need to tell it. It was most likely the best convenient way to get yourself from deep scrutiny and I needed to take the easiest route out especially right now. At least, until I am able to sort myself out.
I open my eyes, staring into the cop’s eyes and try to maintain a steady gaze. A stare for a stare, gaze for gaze, blink for a blink, this was a game of lies and truth, and I could not emerge the loser.
He wrinkled his nose and his eyelids flared. When people do this, it is a clear indication that they’ve reasonably become upset. In this case, he seemed to wield some disapproval about my attitude, complacency, or obstinacy. Whichever provoked him the most, I could not tell, neither could I really blame him, I hated myself right now for doing all this.
“Young lady” he called me for the hundredth time.
“What happened that night?” He forcefully demanded
As I listened to him, I quickly berated myself. Of course, they’d want to know this detail too. How could I be so slow?
Alibi?
A concrete tale?
A semi-lie-concrete-tale?
Which would be preferable to tell? I quickly rummaged through the crevices of my mind, quietly yearning and trying to remember a crime movie that I had watched. a book. Anything that could help
Yes! That’s exactly what I need. I needed to formulate a story that I could easily stick with. Something that appeared sensible to sound believable. A half-truth. A half-lie.
But first, I needed time to form something that’ll be devoid of loopholes. Something that’ll send them far away from me until I was done with my final papers.
“Shena!” I quickly blurted
“Uhm??” I watched as the investigator’s face crystalized in confusion.
Easy peasy! My plan was working fluidly.
“I said Shena” I reaffirmed again.
“And what has that got to do with anything?? ” He bemused
“Well, Shena? That’s my name. You seriously need to avoid calling me a young lady, I have a name you know, and all girls like to be called their names.”
He throws a glance at his colleague and mutters something about modern feminists getting in the way of his job. I couldn’t care less, my plan was working.
“Alright, Shena…I apologize.” He reverted.
“I just need you to answer a few more questions. When last did you see Anabelle?Anabelle Ame.”
“A few days back at the party,” I replied
This was a smart answer, no specifics, no details. I hoped I’d be able to hold the act up for a long while.
The name brought a rush of indecipherable emotions with it.
Memories, and most importantly guilt. The guilt of what could have been. Guilt for what I had done.
If only she’d made a different decision that night. None of this would have really been happening.
Parties and stupid mistakes.
“Tell us what happened before Tanana’s party. What happened that day at Ekosodin?” He interrupted my thoughts
I shrugged. it was not entirely my fault after all as I felt hot tears sting my eyes.
In a bid to hide it, my glance falls on my wristwatch.
“Oh God! I’ve got Dr. Kingsley’s test. I gotta go” I gasp suddenly remembering my test with the bald-headed-no-nonsense-sadistic lecturer. That man would care less even if somebody died. He always stood by his rules and did not falter to anybody. Talk less to a student. If I missed that test, there will be no chance for a rest. Dr. Kingsley was that kind of insensitive lecturer.
“We’ve spoken to the university management and lecturers concerned. There’s no need to worry. You can’t leave here until the investigation is over.”
His words glossed over my ears as I tried to form a plan. The right story.
“Shena!”
“Shena!” He yelled my name.
“Sir?” I replied
“You need to understand the gravity of the situation at hand. And your statement and testament are very much imperative to this case. We need to catch these vile perpetrators, do you understand me?”
Silence. I did not want to understand him. I just wanted to run away from his heavy gaze and hide under a table in my room. The way I did when I was a kid. In fact, I needed my Mom, but I couldn’t call her either. She could never find out that I was involved and tangled in such a mess in school. She’d sent me to the university to study, not to get involved in a stupid party.
As I stared at my feet, I realized that The inspector pulsed with an efficiency that seemed genuine. This was very unlike the many public servants that paraded the Defence force. They were mostly people who had overtly become frustrated by tenuity and the system, and exist not with the hunger to serve justice efficiently but to occupy a secure position of financial stability. It was an endless routine of pot-bellied men waiting to get pensioned while paying homage to the stereotypical corruption of their predecessors; recycling garbage for more garbage.
“Yes inspector, I understand,” I replied dejectedly.
“Before the party or after the Party, which do you want me to talk about?” I replied dejectedly, looking him in the eye. We were back in the eye-challenge game.
“Tell me everything.”
“I can’t” I reply, bursting into tears. “I just can’t” I yell. “Please leave me alone”.
“Come on shena!” He yelled.
“This is not a movie scene where you shout ‘I can’t’ ” he replied mimicking my teary voice.
“Need I remind you that this is Nigeria, and consequences are often lethal” You need to say everything you know, or else, you risk being accused of withholding vital information which is punishable by law”
Do you understand me?
“Y…ees.” I nodded and swallowed hard.
“Alright, let’s start with the details before the party..can you tell us that much? Please.” He asks passionately.
I nod. Clean my nose. Repeat. I close my eyes as memories from that dreadful day begin to cascade my memory.
It was a normal day like every other. The sun rose in the east as it would on a normal campus day, and shone in the sky with such velocity, it became clear that it was there to dominate. The only thing that made this day special was because we had just learned that Tanana would be celebrating her birthday. She’d just turned 22.
“Did you see Tanana at the time you left the party? ” he asked interrupting my narration ”
“Uuhn?” I blinked
“Do you remember anything? Who she was with or the people she was speaking to??”
“Nope inspector. I don’t remember. I mean, she was the celebrity star girl of the day, but my eyes were not fixated on her the whole time. I was so drunk, now that I think of it, it’s all hazy in my memory.”
I lied again as I kept staring at the inspector’s face while recounting the story.
“Alright, Go on Sheena” he replied
“And so, it was with pleasure I had received the invitation. Tanana was one of the coolest girls in the department, and I felt lucky that she had invited me to one of the most lit parties off-campus. I couldn’t pass on this lifetime opportunity. I felt lucky.”
“Did Anabelle get invited too?” The inspector asked.
“Nope, that day, when we were returning from afternoon lectures, I’d walked with Annabelle, and convinced her to come along with me to the party. After much persuasion, She’d agreed to go with me.”
I don’t add that I had threatened to break our friendship if she did not turn up like all the other cool girls on campus. That part would make me sound like a bad person, and I wasn’t a bad person.
Or was I?
“That day, we’d gone shopping for gifts at the mall that we’d present to Tanana when we stumbled on a group of shady looking guys that were throwing catcalls at Annabelle and I. Being the conventional norm that we’ve always had to endure whenever we walked past a group of boys. We weren’t bothered. But these guys were different. They were the Ruthless, angry. It was not long before I identified that they were indeed the people we popularly referred to as ‘strongmen’ on campus.
“Can you identify these guys?”
“No sir, they all wore sun shades and face caps. I was too frightened to look at their faces.”
“Go on,” he commanded.
“They had approached us and called Annabelle dirty names. Asides all these, they requested to have our phones not minding that we were in a public space.”
“Did you know any of these guys prior to this time?”
“Nope inspector,” I answered, getting irritated at the questions he kept asking. “I told you I didn’t”
“Did Anabelle know anybody from the group.” He repeated.
“Nope, Annabelle never acted like she’s had a previous encounter with any of them.”
“What did you two do then?” He was scribbling down some notes as I spoke.
“I remember I had threatened to scream if they further embarrassed Annabelle and I, but they had laughed blatantly at the thought while stating that we were in their territory, and like a marked hen in a heated cock’s territory, there was nothing we could do about it. Nobody would dare to render help to us.”
“They’d forcefully snatched our phones, and on a second thought, the leader had commanded them to return it to us while imputing their numbers in our phones. They had commanded us to call them later in the night instead.”
“Why did they return the phones?” He asked.
“I don’t know sir, they just called us bloody freshers.”
“Annabelle had clearly been upset about the whole incident, and had ordered an uber to take her straight to the hostel.”
Annabelle was always the soft one. The ‘Ajebo’ who had no ghetto resilience In her. Of course, I did not tell him this. It’d only lead to more annoying questions.
“You two don’t stay in the same hostel?”
“Nope inspector, she only visits my place sometimes. We stay separately in different halls of residence”.
Tired of his continued interruptions, I continued with my story.
“That day, We’d both been upset, and the only likely option left was to head back to Tanana’s party to have fun. Fun means different things to different people.
I just wanted to have a few drinks, dance, party, and catch some cruise like everyone else my age.”
“How could I have known that all that would have happened?”I slipped, catching myself immediately. I should not be talking too much again.
“What happened shenna?” The inquisitive inspector asked, catching me on the spot.
I realized that if I said something again, I’d be giving myself away. I quickly replied
“I don’t remember what happened sir”
But it was a big lie. My eyes screamed it all, and the gory details of that birthday burned at the base of my mind gasping to be let loose and free.
The noise.. The screams..blood…drinks… The stench of it all was still fresh in her mind.unflinching, unmoving.
“The party was set off campus. Which means that there were no security patrol officers to monitor the affairs, as well as no safety for anyone involved. Did you know this?” He observed.
“Yes”
“Hmm yes sir…everybody else was there, Nobody really cared about security.”
It was those kinds of wildlife parties that had all sorts of things in it. Hard guys, hard drugs, lots of alcohol, smoke, and all kinds of shit.
“Annabelle and I Had partied all night, and danced ourselves to exhaustion. It was an open field party that had no outlet for sleeping. You had to remain in the open to rest while the others danced and played truth or dare games.” I continued. ” We’d gotten tired of all the party shenanigans and so had found a corner and hurdled to sleep.”
“I don’t remember the rest sir”
How could I tell this inspector that things had gone wrong in the middle of the party? We’d both been wasted, and slept off immediately only to be awoken to the sounds of fireworks.
I had woken up and saw Annabell watching the sky too, grinning from ear to ear while mouthing me
“this is the best party ever, we should do this more often!!”
I had smiled to myself while making a mental note to tease her about the party she’d learned to love eventually. It would be official to say that She’d been hit by a party bug. This was one of our first parties in the university, Annabel and I were not the ideal definition of party girls. We just wanted a few hours of fun.
How would I have known that a few hours of partying would be enough to cost Annabell’s life.
How?
“What do you mean you don’t remember shenna?” He was just beginning to lose his patience with me.
What happened to Annabell? He demanded for the umpteenth time.
When I woke up, I realized that she was gone.
“”Why didn’t you look for her after the party was over?” The other investigator fired.
“I…I…I…thought she got angry and left me behind. This will not have been the first time, it is normal for Annabell to act impulsively most times.”
“After you realized She’d gone missing, did you attempt to reach her in her cell?”
“I didn’t because I had a hangover. I just needed to sleep as soon as I got home”
When did you find out that She’d gone missing??
“I wake up the next day, and I go to class, and I find the news that she’s missing. Everybody’s talking about her like she ain’t the one I sat with watching fireworks just a few hours ago. I hear the rumour that her parents had alerted the police that they couldn’t reach their daughter in school.”
“Everybody’s panicking unnecessarily.” I replied. “She’s probably taking a break from everyone or something” I conclude dismissively.
“Weren’t you her best friend on campus Shenna. Shouldn’t you be the best person to know her whereabouts? You were the last known person to have spoken to her…Shena you’re hiding something”. He confronted me.
“I…I….I” I stuttered, not wanting to give it all away.
Just then there was a scuffle in the other room as a sergeant entered the investigating room, and threw a salute at the inspector.
Sir..we’ve just found a body. The body has been identified to be Anabelle’s remains. Her face is severely marred, and it’s obvious there was a struggle before her death.
The room spun faster than Usain Bolt’s legs on the track field.
Everyone’s eyes zeroed in on me as I gagged and puked on the floor.
I wanted air. Fresh breath. As I remembered it all again.
The noise.. The screams..blood…drinks… The stench of it all was still fresh in her mind.unflinching, unmoving.
Painful flashes. My head seared with pain. The room spun.
Anabelle dead.
What happened to her??
All images are from pixabay.com, free for commercial use and no attribution required
(Hello there! Hope you enjoyed this story? Who do you think killed Anabelle? Don’t forget to leave a comment on your thoughts, share with your friends, and like this story as it means a lot to me!😘)
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